


lies crumble down

by shineyma



Series: this world's gonna end [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 12:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11874285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: Grant's had a bad day. His night might be worse.





	lies crumble down

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my fic [a pebble in the water](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10740039), so 1) you might want to read that first, and 2) **be warned** that it contains references to physical, mental, and emotional abuse. None of it happens on screen, but the abuse is a fairly central plot point, so if that kind of thing triggers you, you might wanna give this one a miss.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Grant’s just off a triple shift that went wrong in almost every possible way. He hasn’t slept in literal _days_ , his recently-relocated shoulder is throbbing, and the fact that he didn’t remember until he got home that he has absolutely no food in his kitchen is only the icing on the top of this fucking awful week. All he wants is to pop a few aspirin and sleep for a _month_.

So having someone start pounding on his front door the second he lies down? Really pisses him off.

He’d love nothing more than to ignore it, but he’s too light a sleeper to drop off with this kind of racket going on. Instead, he grabs the gun off his bedside table, rolls out of bed, and stalks to the front door.

The second he yanks it open, though, all thoughts of murder abandon him. Hell, all _thoughts_ abandon him. All he can do is gape.

“I’m sorry,” Jemma says, breathless and teary. “I didn’t—I didn’t know where else to go.”

Her hoarse little voice snaps him out of his shock; he steps back from the door in silent invitation, scanning the hall behind her for any sign of…fuck, he doesn’t know _what_ he’s looking for—and it doesn’t matter, anyway, because the hall’s deserted.

There’s just Jemma—Jemma at his door at eleven at night, blood splattered on her face and seeping through the sleeves she’s pulled over her hands.

“What happened?” he asks, even as he closes and locks the door behind her. His gun he places on the hall table; if there’s trouble at her heels, he doesn’t want it too far out of reach. “Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head jerkily, hugging herself. “I need help.”

“I can see that,” he says and, keeping her skittish look in mind, takes a careful step closer. “Can you tell me what—”

“I killed Alistair,” she blurts, then claps both hands over her mouth.

“You _what_?” The idea of Jemma _killing_ somebody is enough to throw him for a huge fucking loop; it takes a few seconds for the name to click. “Wait, you don’t mean—?”

“Leopold’s father,” she whispers, like just saying it terrifies her. “I killed Leopold’s father.”

“Okay,” he says. He boxes up his shock and his fear (the Doctor’s an abusive prick when she _hasn’t_ done anything; what’ll he do to her when he finds out she _killed his father_?) and puts it aside for later. Right now, Jemma needs him more than she needs his emotions. “Did anyone see you? Do they know you did it?”

“I don’t…maybe?” Her hands are clasped beneath her chin, and her sleeves have fallen far enough for him to see the blood staining her skin. “We were alone, but—the DWARFs, I don’t know if there were any around, I was too—I couldn’t—”

She’s shaking and breathing fast; on the verge of hyperventilating, if Grant’s any judge.

“Come here,” he says, pulling her into a hug, and she clings to him with a sob. Her skin is like ice. “I’ve got you, baby. You’re okay.”

She shakes her head against his chest.

“You are,” he insists. “No one’s gonna hurt you, okay? I won’t let them.”

“He’ll kill you,” she sobs. “When he realizes I came to you—he doesn’t even need to know I’m in love with you, it will be enough that I’m _here_.”

It’s not the time (really, _really_ not the time), but his heart skips a beat anyway.

She just said she’s in love with him.

In an ideal world—a _better_ world, one where Hydra died with World War II the way it fucking _should’ve_ —this is where he’d say it back. He’d pick her up, carry her to the bedroom, and spend all night _showing_ her just how much he loves her, how much he appreciates the gift she’s given him with that, and in the morning he’d take it one step further, tell her he’s tired of spending so much time away from her and ask her to move in—and she’d be able to say yes, because she wouldn’t be shackled to an abusive prick.

In an ideal world, this would be a happy moment.

Too bad this is the _real_ world.

So instead of telling her he loves her, he kisses her hair and says, “You’re not gonna be here for long.”

Her grip on him spasms.

“And neither am I,” he adds, just in case she’s thinking crazy things about him abandoning her—or worse, turning her in. “I told you, I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. I know somewhere we can go. Somewhere safe.”

“Really?” she asks, looking up at him.

Her tearstained face hits him like a punch to his throbbing shoulder. It’s too much like that first time, that night in the bar at that hotel in the middle of the fucking jungle, Jemma crying into her drink while he fought to make her smile—and then the morning after, when they woke up and realized what they’d done, the way she sobbed her apologies for dooming him.

She cries way too fucking often.

Bright side: maybe this’ll be the opening he’s been looking for, the excuse to cut off the Doctor’s head.

“Really,” he says. “Just let…shit. Your tracker.”

Before he can panic too hard, she shakes her head.

“No, I—I cut it out,” she says, leaning back in his arms so she can twist to show him the blood staining the upper sleeve of her sweater (hopefully the _only_ blood on it that’s hers). “Right after.”

“Jemma…”

“All I could think was that I needed to get away,” she continues softly. “And I knew I couldn’t, not while I was tagged. So I took a knife from the kitchen and…”

Her breathing’s picking up speed again and, much as he’d like to let her talk this out, there’s no way of knowing how close on her tail Hydra is. Do they know the Doctor’s father is dead yet? Do they know Jemma was with him when it happened?

They need to get moving.

“Hold that thought,” he interrupts. “You can tell me everything in just a second, but right now we need to get out of here.”

“Right,” she says. “Yes.”

She steps back, and he lets go of her. Then she hugs herself, and she looks so small and so lost that he has to fight the urge to yank her right back into his arms. But there’s no time to comfort her—and as much as he _wants_ to, what he actually _needs_ is a second away from her so he can get himself together.

“There’s a go bag in my bedroom closet,” he tells her. “Grab it for me?”

She starts for the bedroom before he even finishes asking. “Of course.”

With Jemma out of sight, Grant can allow himself a second to panic: to think of all the many, many ways this can go _really fucking wrong_. Just one second to worry, to curse, to drag his hand over his face and wish he lived in that better world, where the woman he loves would never be in danger at all.

Just one second, and then he puts it all away.

He’s planned for this day—maybe not _exactly_ (he definitely wasn’t expecting her to kill anybody), but he’s always intended to get Jemma away from the Doctor someday. He has contingency upon contingency, and he absolutely anticipated that they might end up fleeing in the middle of the night.

Everything’s fine. He planned for this.

He grabs his gun off the table and then opens the hall closet to grab the spare holster (and another holster, complete with gun) he’s got stashed in there, as well as his favorite jacket and an old hoodie. The jacket he pulls on, zipping it up to hide the holsters and his lack of shirt; the hoodie he trades to Jemma for his go bag when she comes back with it.

“Put that on,” he orders.

Her hands shake while she does, and the little hiss she lets out makes him wonder just how badly she hurt her arm getting the tracker out of it (one-handed, he suddenly realizes; one-handed with a _kitchen knife_ , hell), but she gets it on okay and that’s what matters.

He shoves his feet into his boots—still conveniently lying next to the door, where he kicked them off when he got home—grabs his keys out of the bowl on the hall table, and with one last, regretful look around his apartment (it’s a shame; he really liked this place), opens the door.

“Stay close,” he says, and leads the way out.

He has a getaway car—untagged, unregistered, old enough to be unremarkable but not so unremarkable as to be suspicious—stashed a few blocks from his apartment. It’s not a long walk, probably not even five minutes, and when he chose its hiding place he thought it was pretty easy access.

In the middle of the night, after a very long day, with his shaking and terrified girlfriend to protect? It feels like they have to cross the whole fucking city. With every step, he expects a team of agents to swoop down on them—to kill him on the spot and drag Jemma off for much, much worse.

But they make it to the car just fine. The night is quiet; no sign of DWARFs or search teams.

“You have your phone?” he asks Jemma as he opens the passenger side door for her.

She shakes her head. “I left it at—at Alistair’s.”

“Good.” He tosses the go bag in the backseat, leans in after it to grab a burner phone (one of many) out of a pocket on the side, and texts a quick _I’m in trouble. 3ACX._ to Skye’s phone.

Then he dashes the burner against the concrete and stomps on it for good measure.

He and Skye came up with that code years ago. She’ll know what it means—that she needs to get to their safe house on the east side and wait for him to make contact. She’ll be safe there, out of Hydra’s reach when they eventually figure out that he’s involved in all of this.

That done, he gets in the car and starts it, cranking up the heat in some vague hope it’ll help with Jemma’s shaking.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ve got kind of a drive ahead of us. You think you can tell me what happened?”

She swallows audibly, but doesn’t speak, and Grant doesn’t push her. He backs out of the alley, takes a right at the end of the street, and—driving exactly three miles above the speed limit—heads for the nearest rendezvous point.

He should probably warn Jemma that he’s taking her to the Resistance—to _SHIELD_ —but he doesn’t know how she’ll take it, and the last thing she needs is to be upset even further. He’ll try to ease her into it on the way, feel her out once she’s a little calmer.

Six miles out from his apartment, Jemma surprises him by breaking the silence.

“He was trying to frighten me.”

Grant’s been thinking about SHIELD and how Jeffrey’s gonna react to all of this; it takes him a second to catch up. “Alistair?”

“Mm.” A quick glance at Jemma reveals that she’s staring at her bloody hands. “I was, um. Leopold likes us to spend time together, like a family. So I was at Alistair’s house to have dinner with him. To make Leopold happy.”

Grant bites his tongue, using the sting of it to distract himself. He knows exactly why she made that effort: the Doctor was visibly steaming when Grant and his team reported that they couldn’t find the subversive they’d been sent after, and it’s no question who that towering bad mood would’ve been taken out on. It doesn’t surprise him Jemma was trying to make the bastard happier before she risked going home.

“But he tried to scare you?” he asks, once he’s sure he can without shouting.

“He doesn’t like me,” she says. “I make Leopold weak.”

Grant takes a deep breath and doesn’t comment.

“He was, um.” Jemma takes a deep breath of her own. “He was lying—I _knew_ he was lying—but he said he’d heard I’d been unfaithful and that he simply couldn’t keep it to himself. He said he’d have to tell Leopold.”

Oh, hell.

“It’s not the first time he’s made that sort of threat,” she goes on, voice trembling. “Usually I just…tell him it’s not true, and he pretends not to believe me, and I’ll spend all of dinner begging him to listen. Then he lets it go and we don’t speak of it again until the next time he decides to frighten me.”

“Fucking mind games,” Grant mutters, but his heart aches.

The Doctor’s temper being what it is, that kind of threat from his father would’ve been terrifying enough even if Jemma _weren’t_ unfaithful. That she actually was…

How long has this been hanging over her head? This long-standing threat from her own fucking father-in-law, and he never had a clue?

“Usually it’s fine,” she says, either ignoring or not hearing him. “But tonight…I was thinking of Skye walking in on us, and for a moment I was afraid he really _had_ heard, that she’d told or—or someone had picked up on her tracking my phone and we’d been discovered. And I suppose I was just a bit too frantic, and Alistair realized I was lying in my promises of fidelity.”

So what she’s saying is, this is Grant’s fault. Fuck.

He bites back the apology on his tongue, though; this isn’t the time. The further into her story Jemma gets, the faster she talks—she obviously needs to get this off her chest before she breaks.

“He—he had the phone in his hand,” she continues. “He was going to call Leopold. I begged him not to and he didn’t smile at all, only said I’d brought it on myself. And there was a vase right there, a heavy thing Leopold bought him years ago, so I picked it up and I swung it at his head.” Her breath hitches, and just like that, she’s crying. “He fell and I just froze, I just _stood_ there, and I was so scared—but he was dead.”

It hangs in the air for a very long moment.

“He was dead,” she repeats, quieter. “I killed him.”

“You were protecting yourself,” Grant counters, equally quiet.

“He wasn’t armed—”

“Yes, he was,” he interrupts. “That phone was a weapon, Jemma, and we both know it. He was about to call down hell on you. You were only protecting yourself…and me.”

She sniffles a little, and his peripheral vision catches her rubbing at her face with the sleeve of his hoodie. The side street he’s just turned onto is basically deserted, so he risks taking a good look at her.

In the light from the dash, she looks pale and miserable, swimming in his hoodie and hair in disarray. There’s no way she can pass under the radar; even if there’s no bulletin out on her yet, any Hydra agent worth his salt would take her in on suspicion alone.

Unfortunately, there’s really nothing he can do about that right now. All he can do is offer comfort and hope they make it to the rendezvous without being stopped.

“I’m sorry you had to take a life,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie; this is gonna stick with you for a long time. That misery you’re feeling isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” He holds out his hand and finds himself holding his breath until she takes it. The desperation in her grip isn’t _great_ , but it’s better than rejection. “But I’m _not_ sorry you killed him. You did the right thing, okay? You saved my life.”

And saved _herself_ a whole lot pain…but he doesn’t even wanna speculate on what the Doctor might’ve done to her if his father had gone through with that call.

Jemma’s nails dig into his skin as her grip on his hand tightens. “You were only in danger because of me. If I hadn’t been so weak and pulled you into this mess…” She takes a tremulous breath that stabs at his heart. “If we’d never met, you’d be perfectly safe.”

Oh, Jemma.

“There’re just two problems with that,” he says. “First of all, it takes two to tango. We _both_ fell into bed together and we _both_ decided to keep this thing between us going, even knowing the danger. You don’t get to claim credit for my involvement in this ‘mess.’”

“But if I hadn’t given us away tonight—”

“I bet he’s been pulling this infidelity shit more often lately, hasn’t he?” he asks, cutting her off.

“…Yes,” she says slowly. “How did you know?”

“I’ve never met Alistair Fitz, but I know his type.” Hell, he was _raised_ by his type. “Mind games are fun, but they’ve got a diminishing return. The longer they go on, the more twisted they need to get, or the asshole playing them can’t get any satisfaction.” It’s his turn to tighten _his_ grip as his imagination gets ahead of him, picturing just how things might’ve gone. “Sooner or later, the rush of making you beg wouldn’t have been enough. He’d have actually told the Doctor you were unfaithful, and then we’d either have been discovered anyway…or some random civilian would’ve been murdered, and _you’d_ be…”

He trails off, reminding himself not to speculate aloud. He can’t stop his imagination, but he _can_ spare Jemma the horrible scenarios it’s playing out in his head.

For a few minutes, they’re both quiet, lending each other comfort through their tightly clasped hands. There are few other cars and even fewer streetlights on the circuitous route he’s taking, and it’s easy to pretend that they’re alone in the world, that nothing exists in the darkness outside the safety of this small, unremarkable car.

“What’s the second one?” Jemma asks eventually.

“Sorry?”

“You said there were two problems,” she reminds him, “and then interrupted my protest of the first. You never shared the second.”

“Oh, right.” For a heartbeat he hesitates, second-guessing himself…but no. She’s gonna find out soon anyway; better to give her some warning. And hey, with any luck it’ll distract her from her misery. “See, the truth is, I don’t actually work for Hydra.”

Jemma’s staring. He doesn’t need to take his eyes off the road to know it; he can _feel_ the weight of it. “…What?”

“I’m a mole,” he says lightly. “I’ve been spying on Hydra for the Resistance for years.”

“You… _really_?”

“Really.” He lifts their clasped hands to kiss the back of hers, then lets go (after one last, reassuring squeeze) to make a sharp turn. “So falling in love with you didn’t put my life in danger, baby; it only made it better.”


End file.
